SPECIAL EXAMINES HOW TERRORISTS SUCCEEDED.Byline: - David Kronke No matter how long we deconstruct de·con·struct tr.v. de·con·struct·ed, de·con·struct·ing, de·con·structs 1. To break down into components; dismantle. 2. the events leading up to the tragedy of Sept. 11, we will probably never understand two things - how such a monumentally devastating scheme so utterly eluded the attentions of our authorities, and how anyone, let alone so many men, could be seized with such unbridled hatred that they were happy to throw away their own lives to murder thousands of strangers. ``Frontline: Inside the Terror Network'' covers much of the same ground as A&E's portrait earlier this week of Mohamed Atta, the putative U.S.-based leader of the attacks. ``Frontline'' also profiles his accomplices, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan Al Shehhi. Al Shehhi, it's suggested, became withdrawn after the death of his father; Jarrah jar·rah n. An Australian tree (Eucalyptus marginata) widely grown for its hard red-brown wood. [Nyungar (Aboriginal language of southwest Australia) jarily. , otherwise the most normal-seeming of the bunch, even living with a girlfriend (Atta was obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with sexual purity). Atta was in the Afghani af·ghan·i n. pl. af·ghan·is See Table at currency. [Pashto afgh  n terrorist camps when bin Laden's attacks on the
American embassies in Africa occurred. In 1999, all three men reported
their passports stolen - new ones didn't reveal that they had been
in bin Laden's terrorist camps, so no eyebrows would be raised when
they entered America.
Otherwise, the report follows the men's trail previously reported and by now familiar: Egypt, Germany, Afghanistan, Florida's flight schools. The film also documents the numerous incidents in which the terrorists came tantalizingly tan·ta·lize tr.v. tan·ta·lized, tan·ta·liz·ing, tan·ta·liz·es To excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. close to getting in trouble with the authorities, yet somehow eluded close scrutiny - the what-ifs pile up to an extent to make one heartsick heart·sick adj. Profoundly disappointed; despondent. heart  sick - as well as
Atta's peripatetic, as-yet unexplained treks throughout Europe in
the months before the attacks.
Reporter Hedrick Smith drags himself into the story unnecessarily for dramatic impact. ``I came to Hamburg to try to understand these men,'' he portentously intones. Well, sure. That's pretty much the unspoken but understood directive of any documentary. Still, this brief lapse and what is becoming the sad familiarity of the facts do not dilute the awful intrigue of Smith's report. ``FRONTLINE: INSIDE THE TERROR NETWORK'' What: Documentary on the men who hijacked the planes used in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Where: KCET KCET Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (Japan) KCET Kamaraj College of Engineering and Technology . When: 9 tonight. Our rating: Three stars |
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